


Sticking with a Friend

by The Space Bard (GraceJordan)



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Garrus Vakarian is a Good Friend, No Shepard Without Vakarian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23898676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceJordan/pseuds/The%20Space%20Bard
Summary: Anya is trying to keep everyone away on a difficult day, but a certain turian pushes his way in (an implied Prequel drabble to Drunk Punch Love)
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Kudos: 12





	Sticking with a Friend

“Alenko, I swore to god I told everyone I wanted to be alone tonight-” 

When Anya turned towards the doors, though, it wasn’t a certain biotic in the doorway. Instead, she saw bright blue ice eyes atop an annoying smirk. 

But tonight was not the kind of night where she found his smirking charming. 

Rolling her eyes, Anya turned away. He was an improvement from Alenko, but it didn’t change the rules. “I asked you guys to leave me alone for one night...”

“Yeah, you did. But I’m pretty good at insubordination.” He walked into her room like he owned the place, and it made her skin prickle. Sure, she let him in here for movie nights every Friday, ever since they coped with the plant fanaticism on Feros by watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers. After that it just sort of... stuck.

Anya had grown accustomed to thing between her and her Turian officer being like that. They understood each other too well for things not to get sticky all the time. 

Tonight was not a night where it was refreshing and nice, though. Tonight was the kind where she didn’t want to see anyone, not even Joker, who knew what the fuck she was feeling. 

In a last ditch attempt to ward him off, with his hip leaning into her desk, his eyes boring into the side of her skull as she kept holding onto the box in her hands, she said, “Garrus, I appreciate you trying to be a friend, but I would appreciate you fuck off.”

“What’s going on with you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. And I don’t owe my subordinates the secrets of my personal life.”

“Oh, pulling the subordinate card? You’re really not doing well, are you?”

Of all things, she didn’t want to hear that. God dammit, now was not the time to stick to her, to figure her out. “Don’t push it, Vakarian.”

“What’s in the box, Shepard?”

She practically growled, though her subharmonics weren’t quite tuned for that. “None of your business. I’m your CO.”

“It is my business. Because you’re my friend.” Garrus shook his head and laughed. “Trust me, savor that admission, because I don’t have too many of those.” 

Everything about him made her want to talk, and she hated that about him. She was a Shepard, raised to lead, not to talk and get all mushy.

But then he really pushed the buttons. “And I know you don’t have that many friends, so why don’t you talk to me?”

There was something so appealing about that, about shutting down the forcefield built around her head, be the version of Anya that felt everything a little too much. A commander wasn’t supposed to do that, though, and she couldn’t really navigate between the two. And she really didn’t know what to do with the box in her hands, holding the scraps of a history she only wished she knew. 

At the end of the day, she just wasn’t ready to share the pilot she never knew with anyone else. 

Putting her father’s box of movies on the shelf, Anya smiled up at him. Well, the shitty kind of smile when you were trying to make someone else feel better. “I can’t share that. Not yet. But I won’t make you go. Is that enough for a friend?”

Though he didn’t look all that satisfied, turning his head in that judgmental, cop-kind of way he still looked at people, he did unfurl his arms. “Fine. I guess that’s a decent compromise. As long as you aren’t alone.”

Anya snorted. “With all you idiots? I’m never alone.” Taking a deep breath, she picked up a datapad. “Wanna look over the specs for the Noveria mission and then watch a movie?”

“I think I can do that.” And Garrus didn’t push her again, not about the box on her shelf, not even when he went to leave after she made him watch a documentary on Alliance pilots. He just made jokes on if she was trying to impress Joker with some new ship know-how. 

And he made her laugh. 

Over the years, Anya Shepard learned to be distant from her team-members, no matter how “close” they got. She had to professional and she had to be stronger than all of them. They couldn’t get close enough to see all the cracks she had in her Commander’s smile. 

But there was something about Garrus, and the easy way he walked into her life, that just... stuck. And she couldn’t seem to push him away, no matter all the concerning things that could mean for her. 

Guess she’d see how this went. For now, though, it was nice. 

She’d never tell Joker, though. He’d never let her live it down.


End file.
